For you, a very experienced and skilled player, SA comes almost mandatory, near levels of instinct, that your choice of engagements are never bothered by the actual possibility of being shot-down from the sky. But like I said, guys like you forget that the rest 70~80% of the MA population, the average guys of the world, cannot all be like you. For them, gaining victories and having fun in the air comes with a premise that THEY HAVE TO SURVIVE THAT LONG TO BE ABLE TO HAVE ANY KIND OF FUN in the first place.
To them, speed (or rather, the ability to choose the engagements of their liking, and be able to disengage at will, that can be provided by being in speedy plane) is not a passive factor. It is THE primary factor, and an absolutely most important factor that keeps them in the air.
-Kweassa replying to Steve about the Pony's strengths and how people fly them differently...
This is so incredibly important to understand when discussing practically anything on these boards. It just amazes me that so few people understand this. I did
ALOT of training back in the day, when Moses was in diapers, and I've seen literally thousands of players grow from complete N00bs to highly experienced players. I can categorically promise you the following is as true as gravity holds your arse to the planet...
Not Everyone...1) Learns at the same rate.
2) Begins with the same innate conception of gunnery and flying respectively.
3) Has the same maximum potential gunnery and flying skill respectively.
4) Interprets air combat experiences or adapts to them the same way over time.
I know hundreds of people who have been flying many years and really try their butts off, but are still poor to mediocre at gunnery and/or flying. Conversely, I know hundreds of people who had never touched a joystick in their lives until playing, but within a year were "Air Gods" at gunnery and/or flying with very little effort.
Stang, is a great example, he was still a teenager when he started, but I noticed him right away, he stuck out like a virgin in a brothel. I told Soup (4510), "That kid is going to be way better than me one day, you just watch". Well, it didn't take long for that "one day" to happen. Within a year Stang could fly circles around me, he was already better than I ever thought about being and I had 8-9'ish years (about a million air combat fighter hours) of flying experience on him. It all just made perfect sense to him right from the beginning.
I'm an example of another common type. By the 3rd day of playing AW I was making shots that made people shake their heads in awe. I was popping people from insane angles, never really having to outfly them to kill them. Deflection gunnery to me was like wiping your butt. In my mind, if you could hit your bunghole with a piece of toilet paper you could hit someone at 30 degrees deflection while inverted and doing the dishes. Shooting was so easy for me I never really had to do any fancy flying to kill with great efficiency. As a result I rarely landed kills in the beginning because I'd eventually get backed into a corner and outflown even though I flew mostly Spits and 109s at the time. However, I became a decent flyer eventually, but never truly great and in almost 20 years, with much effort, I've only grown from decent to merely above average in the flying department. But, I'm still one of the more gifted shotmakers in the game even though I'm much older and half-blind now.
The point is we are all unique, we simply can't say anything vaguely close to.."Well, Steve can do X,Y,Z in a Pony so should RandomGuy13, if not now, eventually". The whole is greater than the sum of its parts when it comes to the plane/pilot dynamic in an air combat game. You have the plane, which is a hardcoded bit of imaginary data portrayed as a cartoon to us and you have the individual pilot which is an incredibly unique blend of innate talent, acquired skills, experience and perspective. Combine the two and you have an almost infinite variety of potential styles, approaches and skill levels, even when comparing people who fly just one type of aircraft like the P51.
In the final analysis there's only two measures that can be compared between pilots...Effectiveness and Fun...You are either effective at killing people within a reasonable period of time, however you choose to do it (except vulching), or you're not, it's pretty simple and quantifiable. The same goes for fun, you're either having fun or not. If you're not having fun flying a certain way, fly another way. If you find dying un-fun, fly accordingly. If you find flying by the seat of your pants fun, even if it means getting horrendously defiled by a pack of ganging lamers from time to time, do that until the sun falls from the sky. Balancing fun and effectiveness, which are sometimes mutually enhancing or can be mutually exclusive, is the real goal of everyone who truly loves cartoon air combat. But, it almost never equates to the same exact thing for any two people, it's almost like your fingerprint in that respect...
